Corbella: PM’s wife puts in hard labour to help out flood victims

Laureen Harper rolled up her sleeves and donned her rubber boots to lend a hand in the massive clean up efforts going on in Calgary on Tuesday. Thick mud covers much of the Mission area and Harper wanted to help the affected residents begin the clean up process. Later in the day, she made the trip to Morley to help deliver much needed supplies to the evacuation centre.

If anyone wondered if living in 24 Sussex Drive has softened up Laureen Harper, they should have seen her go Wednesday.

The prime minister’s wife — along with a whole bunch of Calgary MPs, friends and assistants — cleaned out literally tonnes of garbage from flood-damaged Calgary-area homes, helped deliver tonnes of food at the Morley reserve and then — after putting in a solid eight hours of work and travel, continued on to Exshaw, where she helped clean out a couple more damaged homes.

In other words, this was no political photo op. This was hard, hard work.

The day started down in the Mission neighbourhood at 24th Avenue and 1st Street S.W. right near the old Holy Cross hospital. An entire driveway was piled high with rubble — including mud-soaked drywall, plywood, carpeting and the like.

Harper, who just turned 50 on Sunday, stepped right to the head of the pile and started hauling heavy, dangerous items full of rusty nails into the backs of waiting garbage trucks.

“It’s amazing what you can do with a long line of people who are willing to get a little dirty,” said Harper as the crew — which included Calgary MPs Rob Anders, Deepak Obhrai and Joan Crockatt, PMO staffer Veronica Gerson, Edmonton MP Rona Ambrose and her partner, former rodeo bull rider J.P. Veitch, and Harper’s friend and neighbour from the northwest neighbourhood of Tuscany, Kelli Taylor — made short work of that pile and moved onto another amid the din of rumbling generators.

Even City of Calgary sanitation worker Keith Field, who was operating the crushing mechanism of the garbage truck, was impressed.

“They’re good workers, that’s for sure,” said Field, adding that each truck holds 10,500 kilos of trash.

In no time that truck was full.

Calgary Centre MP Crockatt — who can’t weigh more than 105 pounds covered in mud — helped a resident carry an old washing machine to the roadside and then helped him carry the dryer. The curbsides looked like appliance graveyards. And that was some of the easy stuff to clear. Much of the debris had protruding nails and jagged edges. Forming an assembly line, the work crew, led by Harper, moved from property to property unannounced and just started helping out.

“Isn’t that the prime minister’s wife?” asked Rick Lauzon, 48, as he took a break from shovelling the basement apartment he owns by the river.

“It’s pretty incredible that she’s here, and look at her work,” he marvelled. “Actually, I can’t believe the volunteers. Every day, complete strangers have helped us out.”

People like Neveen Aboushaaban, 33, who lives in untouched Garrison Green.

“I just have to do something to help these people who have lost so much,” says the self-employed real-estate investor. After not finding any rubber boots and work gloves in Calgary, she drove to Red Deer, bought boxes of both and gave many of them to Calgary Ward 8 Alderman John Mar, and kept a few more to distribute to friends who wanted to help.

After filling another garbage truck, the troop moved on to 4th Street and 30th Avenue.

Margaret and Michael Best’s home of 22 years had floodwater’s seven feet deep in their basement.

That’s where three teenage girls from the northeast community of Taradale — strangers just hours earlier — were tearing out drywall in the darkness and handing it up to Harper, who passed it along the assembly line to yet another garbage truck.

Rebecca Hamilton, 18, her sister Jennifer, 14 and their friend Sania Kelly, 17, were even dirtier than Harper, who insisted that they get a photo together.

Margaret Best, a talented artist who has designed coins for the Canadian Mint, said she was overwhelmed with the kindness and help her family was receiving.

“I’m a fan of the Harpers anyway and now this,” she said. “It’s incredible.”

Less impressed was Steve Forrest, who lived on the same block and scoffed at Harper when she disassembled one of Best’s framed watercolours to preserve it while photographers snapped away.

“I don’t need the prime minister’s wife to take apart a framed painting. Right now I need to be able to move into my house.”

But Harper understood his anger and frustration and went back later to comfort the man, whose father is flooded out in High River and whose other family members also suffered damage in the Rideau Park neighbourhood.

“I actually do understand what these people are going through,” said Harper. When she was 17, on Christmas Day 1980, a windstorm destroyed her house in Turner Valley. “The roof weighed seven tonnes and was blown away. Peoples’ barbecues were found a mile away from their home. The next day it rained. We lost everything, so I understand how upsetting and unsettling it is. Your home is your safe place and when it’s torn from you, it’s devastating.”

Later, Harper moved on to Elbow Park to thank volunteers at the Anglican Christ Church, which has been providing free dinners every night for flooded homeowners and volunteers.

Deedee Pritchard, an opera singer, said the whole scene on the street was reminiscent of an opera — full of tragedy but also amazing humanity, colour and ambience.

Across the street, Tom and Debra Mauro, owners of Albi Homes, had set up large tents and doled out hamburgers, chips, drinks and cookies to help the weary residents.

After that, it was off to Wildrose MLA Rob Anderson’s constituency office, where 20 trucks filled with food, water, cleaning supplies, diapers, blankets, pet food, toys, cribs and other essentials drove in a convoy to the Morley reserve west of Calgary.

Once there, another assembly line formed and the more than $50,000 worth of stuff, mostly from Airdrie residents, was unloaded in about two hours of hard slogging into the Morley Community School.

“This is a lot easier to unload,” said Harper as she handed a flat of Mr. Clean to Rona Ambrose. “There’s no mud or nails in this.”

Belinda Left hand wept when she saw the incredible amounts of food being unloaded.

“We had just run out of food — it was all gone so this came just in the nick of time,” said Left hand, 44, who was co-ordinating the hampers for flooded-out families. About 200 homes in Morley were flooded and 60 are unlivable.

“I can really feel the love here,” she added, giving Harper a hug. “We’re all overwhelmed with the generosity.”

Bearspaw First Nations Chief Darcy Dixon, who grew up with Harper in Eden Valley, said: “Having my old friend come out to help has encouraged us all. Laureen knows our people and this donation and help means so much.”

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